The monumental importance of Manami Toyota

Manami Toyota is one of the best wrestlers in the world today, even if she barely gets any attention in the internet wrestling community. Even at 46, she is still one of the most accomplished tacticians in the business. When she announced her plan to retire last weekend, the news sadly came to the world with little fanfare, even if those in the know about joshi wrestling know how monumental that announcement truly is. She innovated several moves and her Ocean Cyclone Suplex is still one of the meanest looking moves in professional wrestling, whether it came from her, Al Snow, Rey Mysterio or Elix Skipper.

And of course, she's recognized as the purveyor of more five star matches than any other female wrestler, all despite making her United States wrestling debut in 2010, nearly twenty-four years into her career. She made that debut in Chikara, where she wrestled off and on for two years, putting on matches that perhaps weren't as great as her classic All Japan Women's battles, but were still impressive for a forty year old talent. As far as this writer knows, Chikara remains the only United States promotion where Toyota plied her trade. It seems likely it will remain the only one as well, as it seems unlikely she will make any US appearances elsewhere between now and her retirement on November 3rd.

If you have never watched her wrestle before, you're in luck because many of her five star matches are available on Youtube. Here are a pair of her best to get you started. I'll give the complete list from Meltzer at the bottom of the page.




The list:

• (1991) with Etsuko Mita vs Aja Kong and Bison Kimura on January 5
• (1992) with Toshiyo Yamada vs Yumiko Hotta and Suzuka Minami on March 7
• (1992) vs Kyoko Inoue on April 25
• (1992) vs Toshiyo Yamada on June 21
• (1992) vs Toshiyo Yamada (IWA, Hair vs Hair Match) on August 15
• (1992) with Toshiyo Yamada vs Dynamite Kansai and Mayumi Ozaki on November 26
• (1993) with Toshiyo Yamada vs Dynamite Kansai and Mayumi Ozaki on April 2
• (1993) with Toshiyo Yamada vs Dynamite Kansai and Mayumi Ozaki on December 6
• (1993) with Akira Hokuto vs Toshiyo Yamada and Kyoko Inoue (Tag League, Round Robin) on December 10
• (1993) with Akira Hokuto vs Toshiyo Yamada and Kyoko Inoue (Tag League, Final) on December 10
• (1994) with Toshiyo Yamada vs Takako Inoue and Kyoko Inoue on September 10
• (1994) vs Aja Kong on November 20
• (1995) vs Kyoko Inoue on May 7
• (1995) vs Aja Kong on June 27
• (1995) vs Mima Shimoda on July 23
• (1995) with Sakie Hasegawa vs. Kyoko Inoue and Takako Inoue on August 30
• (1995) vs. Akira Hokuto on September 2